Specialist welfare rights advice practitioner and trainer Sarah Batty outlines her 2017 research into the impact of welfare reforms on social tenants in the North East

I am particularly interested in the interaction between increasing conditionality and increasing discretion within the social security system. One aspect of this is the discretionary powers of Jobcentre work coaches who administer the ‘personalised conditionality’ within the new Universal Credit (UC). I wanted to explore the perspectives of claimants, and among the people who talked to me were two women with health conditions who had also experienced benefit sanctions. Their stories illuminate the emerging tension between discretionary conditionality and support for vulnerable people.

Jackie (not her real name), aged 54, had been a carer for her children and then her mother. She was now looking for work, but her barriers included the precarious local job market and her inability to travel by bus because of an anxiety condition. She had been sanctioned three times for minor reasons and for six months had been living on a monthly hardship allowance of £190 (£44pw), with significant negative physical and emotional effects:

I’ve tried to take my own life three times… the last time… was about two weeks ago… they wanted to keep me in hospital over the weekend but I signed myself out… Believe it or not I used to weigh 10 stone, I’m just under 7 ½ now… It’s the stress of an eviction order…. all this not getting any money, it is terrible.

[My boyfriend] had a go at me the other night because I wouldn’t eat. I would not eat. You get that used to not eating, it doesn’t bother you.

Sanctions, as David Webster argues, are ‘designed to reduce people… to complete destitution’. Jackie’s experience of destitution had a detrimental influence on her ability to work, echoing the findings of the Welfare Conditionality research project that conditionality can be ‘counter-productive’.

Within two weeks of her hospitalisation, Jackie’s work coach had shown neither the compassion to allow a period of recuperation, nor a competent understanding of mental illness:

He went ‘no it doesn’t matter if you’re on the sick, you still look for work… I still want you to go in the library, do all your job search every day, and I’m going to send you on an IT course in two weeks’.

The work coach had not exercised the discretion to suspend or reduce work-search requirements as granted by the UC regulations. The power of the work coach over Jackie’s very means of survival illustrates the ‘micro-problem of discretion’ (Adler and Asquith, 1981): ‘Tthe attitude on my work coach was disgusting… he’s got it in for me… ever since I’ve been sanctioned, it’s him”. How can this relationship, now characterised by mutual distrust, also offer hope of personalised employment support?

Welfare rights experts have highlighted that the provisions for ‘safeguarding’ people with mental health problems are much more limited within UC, as definitions of vulnerability in regulations and guidance have been replaced by vaguer concepts such as ‘complex needs’ which allow for wide interpretation.

Karen, a 48 year old single parent, was sanctioned for missing a job interview when her son was late collecting her grandson from her care. Not informed of hardship payments, Karen had spent weeks not eating properly: ‘I couldn’t physically take the food out of the cupboard for myself, knowing my daughter needed it.’ Describing the shock and the resulting eviction notice for £1,800 rent arrears, she said:

I wasn’t prepared for it… and that’s when it was really, really getting to me. And I could feel myself going down and down into a bog, and I can’t get out. I had to go to the doctors and literally cry for help. They put me on anti-depressants, they sent me to Mind for counselling.

Karen also had osteoarthritis and knee-cartilage damage but, under the lowered threshold for ‘work capability’, had been assessed as ‘fit for work’. The work coach had not used discretion to modify the conditionality within her UC claimant commitment to take account of her impairments, so she had to look for 25 hours a week of retail or care work:

You’ve got to abide by their rules… no matter which way you turn, they have actually got you… Yeah, I’m able to work… if I grit my teeth and work through the pain, but at the same time… it’s not good for me. It’s not good for my knee, because it does hurt.

A key design feature of UC is the online scrutiny of claimants’ recorded work-search, and Karen had been told she was ‘not doing enough’. This digital hyper-surveillance works in combination with fear and intruded into her home:

Four emails came through… so I checked my phone, and I had to go straight onto my Universal Credit [online account], accept them, ‘cos if you don’t accept them straight away, you get sanctioned.

Luckily, I had a word with my work coach, and she’s been absolutely brilliant… If there’s any kind of appointments that arise… I’ve got to put in my journal I’ve got an appointment with my daughter at half ten, how long it went… including travel.

Although Karen spoke positively about her work coach, we can see the expectation that claimants account for every hour of their day. This facilitates the bureaucratic monitoring of whether they have ‘done enough’, a contractual approach which could distract decision-makers from considering people’s wider personal and social circumstances.

These new combinations of localisation and discretion have been described by the Commons Work and Pensions Committee as a ‘radical departure’. Future research must forefront the experiences of people with health problems and disabilities under UC, to assess whether it truly is capable of providing social security.

With warm thanks to the people who shared their stories, Prof Peter Dwyer who supervised this dissertation, FINCAN for their valuable support and Thirteen Housing Group.

The government have become experts at dismissing legitimate criticism of their policies. It’s absurd that they attempt to deny that punitive policies are inflicting the consequences of punitive policies, especialy on some of our most vulnerable citizens.

I’m just writing an article about this political epistemological totalitarianism – the dismissal of citizens’ qualitative accounts of their experience and the dismissal of academic research, including quantitative research, which the government are fond of citing, unless it doesn’t fit with their ideological world view. Any valid criticism is instantly dismissed, regardless of the empirical evidence presented, as ‘scaremongering’., ‘ a misuse of statistics’ (that one is particualrly priceless coming from a government with a list of official rebukes for inventing statistics that is several pages long) , and even ‘Momentum supporters’ and ‘marxists’.

The introduction of ordeals into the welfare system is deliberate to deter people from claiming, and to ensure thoose who do are as insecure and uncomfprtable as possible. It’s crude behaviourism – the government are boardroom psychologists, specialising in psychobabble and managementspeak.

If you are sanctioned for not attending demand a copy of a said letter with proof of postage and receipt they cannot produce the proofs so you win.
If they claim they handed you a letter then describe yourself and the clothes you wore on the date and ask them for proof of you being handed the open letter. If they say they are not responsible for the surveillance equipment and you should contact the building owners, reply that if they have the proof of the claimant, you, being handed the letter they should produce it or you are taking legal action for compensation plus all back payments.
If they claim not looking for enough jobs, then ask them in a Subject Access Request for a complete list of all the jobs available within 90 minutes of your home address that a person with your qualifications could do. They will probably try the more than £600 con but this is a SAR, not an FOI so with every option they throw at the claimant you have them over a barrel. As far as I am aware with a SAR there is no limit as you are the subject and asking them to prove, by providing a list, of all the jobs that you could reasonably apply for.

Hi Gilliam. I’m sorry to hear that you’ve been unable to return to your profession. I know that there are some advice organisations such as CPAG and LITRG currently interested in finding out about peoples’ experiences of the self employment rules in UC. If you would like to talk to me in confidence please email the WelCond project and ask them to put you in touch. Best wishes.

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You also have an exact and clear idea of how all this affects people who are actually caught up in it. Unfortunately, the people who are responsible for these policies and decisions have never had to deal with it so there is no understanding and no empathy. We are losing our humanity in today's society.

Why would people then bother to make a home and spend money on it? We have to get away from this mindset that has now taken hold that Social Housing.....hate that term, is just temporary to suit your immediate needs. People should not have to up sticks all the time because a child gets older etc. When the old system was in place ie older people with larger homes than they needed they were offered incentives to downsize. In the 90's more Older peoples accommodation was built. Bungalows, Sheltered Housing etc. People were given help with removal costs. This has all changed. To make someone move from a home they have been in for years is cruel if it is not voluntary. I have been in my home since it was built. My daughter moved out as she should when grown up to make her own home. So after 23 years with roots well and truly down, should I be made to move? I have my granddaughter to stay. My daughter's room is now for her and was also an office when I worked from home. I could not fit my home into a small 1 bedroom flat. I do not want people living above me. This idea that if you live in Social Housing it is just accommodation but if you own it is your home is totally wrong. My parents moved willingly into Sheltered Housing but the change affected them drastically. My dad became stressed and ill and died a year later and my mother never settled and died a few years later. This was because they uprooted themselves and left their home and all the memories and familiar surroundings. Unfortunately like most issues these days, the humanity is being taken out of it.

Great resources on linking welfare sanction and conditionally and key social policy considerations with human rights principles (including dignity, non-discrimination). These considerations have a huge impact in narratives around poverty and vulnerability, and should be closely looked at by policy decision-makers and street-level bureaucrats.

Ok. I don’t agree with the bedroom tax but I do feel it would be a better option if housing rules were changed. For example why do they wait until kids are over 10 until giving families two bedrooms?
Then I also think housing should be fit for purpose so I believe when they move someone from a one bedroom to a 2 or 3 it should be with the understanding only until the children grow up and leave home then they should have their Tennancy moved back to something more suitable again like a one bedroom.

A fine well written and clear example of what is broken in our welfare system.
They are asking for submission for the next select committee meeting on welfare and I would submit this post if it were my choice.
It is a vicious cycle for some who have no chance of finding work however hard they might try. It is the employers who ultimately make the decision if employees are fit and ready to work, not the DWP.
Having a budget of £2 per day for food , job searching activities, keeping your appearance and strength up, and having to jump through hoops and tick boxes on all those strength zapping, soul destroying schemes courses and programs that do nothing but heap yet even more pressure and stress.
The affects of stress on both mental and physical health are well documented and nothing can be more stressful than not knowing week in, week out, that your hand to mouth existence is constantly at risk.
Sanctions are death sentences for some, no getting away from that fact, those charged with administrating the regime should hang their heads in shame, it is those who should make the stand to bring about change.
Or do they deceive themselves into believing long time shirker Jim who they sanctioned last month and who has not been seen again at the local JCP, Is now enjoying the fruits of his labor thanks to the Works Coaches helpful push they so desperately needed.
So clearly sanctions work and a good done job done by me, high five everyone.